


work in progress

by fallencrest



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Fake/Pretend Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-23
Updated: 2014-12-23
Packaged: 2018-03-03 02:51:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2835350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallencrest/pseuds/fallencrest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gansey pretends Ronan is his boyfriend to avoid unwanted attention. They may also actually want to be together but that's a little more work than the pretense.</p>
            </blockquote>





	work in progress

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pasdexcuses](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pasdexcuses/gifts).



> I just finished _The Dream Thieves_ yesterday and when I saw your Ronan/Gansey prompts I just had to write this little treat. This should fill your "pretending to date you because someone was obnoxiously hitting on you AU" prompt pretty nicely, though it's not strictly AU.

The party is a mixer, Aglionby boys and girls from the girls' school on the other side of Henrietta. It isn't the sort of thing they do, high school parties, certainly not the kind that are organised by high school committees. But Ronan's seen the way Gansey's been looking at him, like he's afraid that Ronan's restlessness will bubble over into something nasty and reckless and difficult to correct or contain. So, when Gansey says they should go, get out of Monmouth, just them, he agrees to it. 

Besides, there's always something about Ronan which is hungry to have Gansey to himself. This was how it ought to be, how it had been before Adam and all the rest of it. Him and Gansey and their quest and nothing to slow them down or rattle them off course. Just them, and their sleeplessness and no-one else to care about it. 

“There even going to be alcohol at this thing?” Ronan asks on the drive over, and he can see the way Gansey's expression tightens – Gansey who's driving the Pig, eyes on the road but face easy to read as a feeble tenth grade Latin assignment. Still, Gansey doesn't say that he doesn't want Ronan to drink. He just says that he expects so, at least once the whole thing's got started anyway. 

 

For the first half hour, it looks like a dry party. But then it isn't anymore. At least not if you catch the eye of the right person. Ronan has got himself a red plastic cup full of cheap beer and is just heading back to talk to Gansey when he sees something he doesn't much like. 

There's a girl, a real pretty girl, draping herself over Gansey and looking like she's trying to coax him into something. Ronan is about to turn away, walk away, get drunk and maybe try to convince someone to let him borrow their friend's car and take it for a race around the block; but Gansey catches his eye and calls him over.

Gansey says, “Steph, this is the boy I was telling you about.” He sounds a little nervous and very unGansey, even as he carries on, saying “My boyfriend, Ronan.” 

Ronan is damn glad he hadn't just taken a swig of his beer because he probably would've wound up doing a spit-take if he had. But Gansey's arm slips behind him, wraps around his waist and rests with a thumb hooked into Ronan's belt loop. Ronan hopes the way he shudders will pass as him being perturbed by the suddenness of the touch because, damn, if he'll ever be ready to explain the actual reason to Gansey. 

Ronan turns his eyes on the girl then though and says, “hi,” in a voice that sounds like a growl and implies 'get off my turf'. He can already see her taking a step away: she's no longer got a hand on Gansey's shoulder and has stopped leaning in. “It's a pleasure to meet you,” he adds, letting his lips quirk into a smile he knows will read as a threat. 

He intentionally doesn't look at Gansey as he lets his own free hand rest against Gansey's back. 

Steph laughs a nervous sort of giggling laugh and says something that tapers off at the end about how she'd thought he was joking when he'd said he was gay.

Gansey goes all smooth then, all Richard Campbell Gansey III, as he says, “I hadn't realised that I'd failed to communicate that. I've never thought of sexuality as anything other than a serious matter.”

Steph laughs nervously again and then one of her friends, as if feeling the change in temperature in their private atmospheric zone, steps in to drag her away.

Gansey keeps his voice low and doesn't move his hand as he leans into Ronan's ear and whispers “Sorry about that.”

Ronan doesn't scruple about responding with “What the hell is going on, man?”

Gansey gestures that they should sit down, slowly extricating his hand in a way which makes Ronan suddenly aware of his own breathing. 

Ronan's own hand leaves Gansey's back only reluctantly, as they sit side by side on seats at the edge of the room. 

Gansey tells the story a little more awkward and a little more honestly than he would under his public face. He says how girls at these things just wouldn't stop leaving him alone and how they just wanted his money and he couldn't take it anymore, he just told one of them one time that he was gay and it helped, so he kept doing it. Gansey does his normal, too-good thing of admitting that he knows it isn't right and that he shouldn't use sexual identity as a shield disingenuously because he understands that the real struggles and discrimination suffered by the gay community shouldn't be belittled and their identities appropriated. 

It's all very well meant, if a little too guilt-ridden for Ronan to feel anything other than a desire to take Gansey's side and back him up against anyone who might call him out. But he stops Gansey before he's done with a finger to Gansey's lips, leaning in close. 

He doesn't want to gesture behind him to make it obvious that Steph and her friends have appeared nearby, knowing how stupidly obvious their performance would be if Gansey looked over his shoulder at them.

Ronan moves his hand down to let it rest on Gansey's shoulder, trying to bend the look on his face into something unthreatening so Gansey knows he isn't offended, that he isn't silencing him out of anger or dissent. He figures Gansey knows him well enough to know he'd punch him sooner than put a finger to his lips if he were offended but he figures a few extra cues won't hurt. 

The look in Gansey's eye is still shocked, startled, like he's about to say something, ask something. But Ronan leans his head in towards Gansey and Gansey follows without reluctance. Ronan puts his lips to Gansey's ear and whispers, “In case you're wondering what's brought on this strange change in my behaviour: they're behind you.” He's going to add something along the lines of “don't look now” but Gansey seems to have caught on and cooked up another plan already. There always was something beautiful about Gansey with a plan. And, oh-

Gansey's hand is soft but sure as it comes to rest behind Ronan's ear, brushing both the close-shaved stubble of his hair and sensitive skin of his neck. Ronan breathes out like he's been winded worse than by a punch, breath shuddering out of him. 

Their eyes lock as Gansey pulls back, away from Ronan's lips against his ear. They both smile and there's something electric and wicked in it, Ronan thinks. 

They stay like that for what is maybe one second, maybe two or three, before Gansey leans back in and presses his lips to Ronan's. 

It's reluctant and chaste, like the form and show of a kiss, until Gansey slowly pulls away and Ronan can't resist the urge to follow. 

He presses his lips to Gansey's again and Gansey kisses back, his mouth opening, tongue pressing against Ronan's lips, and Ronan feels like he's flying and falling both at once, like he's forgotten how to breathe. He tethers himself by reaching to hold tight to the back of Gansey's neck. 

When they break apart, they rest their foreheads against each other, Ronan breathing like a man saved from drowning, Gansey just smiling, letting his hand slip a little down Ronan's neck, resting half instead the neckline of his t-shirt. 

“Shit,” Ronan says, once he's got his breath back, “shit.” 

He looks around, turning his head just a little to see that the girls are out of sight. He closes his eyes for a second, lets himself relax in toward Gansey, breathes. Then he opens his eyes and makes a sudden movement back from Gansey, thinking he'll stand, walk away, get some air – even if he isn't sure how ready he is to stand. 

Gansey grabs his arm when he goes to leave though, with the hand that had rested on Ronan's neck moments before. 

Ronan sits back down but gives Gansey a look which is something like a challenge, a dare for Gansey to try and stop him from leaving, a promise of the consequences attached to any such attempt.

“Wait,” Gansey says, and he looks unmoored, unsure. For once, Dick Gansey doesn't seem to have an answer.

“Don't try to make this better,” Ronan snarls, “There isn't any way to make this better.”

He puts his hand on Gansey's where Gansey is holding his arm, starting to pry Gansey's fingers away. “I'm gay, Gansey,” he says, like he's damning Gansey by saying it, “Not just for show or to prove something. I'm gay.” 

Gansey lets go of his arm. No more prying needed. And that's all the response Ronan needs. 

Ronan leaves, walks right out into the parking lot outside before he realises he has nowhere to go. The Pig is sitting out there in the lot and there's part of him that wants to go find a stone, a rock, to throw through the wind-shield, but by the time he's walked right up to it, he just rests his hand against the hood and feels the fight go out of him, feels everything drain out of him. He could mess up the Pig or not mess up the Pig but either way he has no home less unless he faces Gansey and he can't face Gansey. 

He doesn't hear anyone follow him out but he feels the hand on his shoulder, when Gansey catches up to him.

“Ronan,” he says, voice soft and a little wrecked. 

Ronan refuses to look around. “I don't want your pity, Gansey. Never did.”

“I don't pity you,” Gansey says, still sounding tired and worn down to softness. 

They stand there in silence for seconds which stretch out for far too long. 

“Ronan, please,” Gansey says, without asking for anything. 

Ronan turns around slowly and doesn't say anything, his face set and simmering with fury. 

“I didn't kiss you because they were watching,” Gansey says, still a little hesitant, but determinedly meeting Ronan's eye. “I kissed you because I wanted to. I told them I was dating you last year because I wanted to. It wasn't about telling them I was gay, it was about telling them I was with you.” He stops short, looks down briefly, then back up, “You're incredible, Ronan. I wish I'd been brave enough to ask you then,” and Ronan can hear the current underneath that, the fact that 'then' was before Niall Lynch had been beaten to death with a tyre iron, before Ronan had found him. 

“I'm not as brave as you are,” Gansey says, with a choked sort of laugh. 

Ronan looks down at the gravel under their feet, doesn't have anything to say, any way to forgive or thank Gansey. He isn't sure whether an apology would be more appropriate. He never was as good as Gansey at etiquette and manners.

“You should do what you want to,” Gansey says, a little stilted, and Ronan sees the way he shifts his feet, “I don't want to make you uncomfortable or force you to stay but, if you could bear to stay at Monmouth, to put this behind us and move forward as friends: it might not be the same but I don't want to lose you.”

Ronan wants to say that, since Gansey is so good at people, so much better than him anyway, he ought to know what Ronan wants, ought to have known last year, ought to have known the moment he'd met him. But maybe Gansey's just good at charming people and not at understanding them. Ronan doesn't have much time for either thing.

“Gansey,” Ronan says, almost in spite of himself, “you're all I've got.” There's part of him that wants to say more, dangerously more, more than he can trust himself to make real by putting into words.

He meets Gansey's eye, trying not to let Gansey see how unsure he is, how much he wants to run or hit something. 

“You want to go home?” Gansey asks, trying for levity.

“No,” Ronan says, and he has to watch as Gansey's face falls, realising he spoke too soon, got it wrong. And, fuck, he'd never wanted to hurt Gansey, that's not what this is. This is just Ronan failing to understand, failing to believe how Gansey's words can echo everything he's wanted and never even dared to hope he could have. 

“Not yet,” Ronan says, as he puts his hands on Gansey's hips, a little uncertain. He moves slower than he thinks he should as he leans his face in close to Gansey's. He sees Gansey's eyes close and he almost bottles out of kissing him; but then their lips meet and Gansey raises his hand to rest on Ronan's face. 

Ronan breathes easier this time, pulls Gansey in toward him, slips one hand up inside Gansey's shirt, feels it all fall into place in a way he knows is too good to be permanent. The kiss is tender and slow and when they break apart they're both smiling. 

Gansey closes the space between their lips again moments later and, between kisses, whispers “thank you.” 

Ronan doesn't know what Gansey has to thank him for but, just now, it doesn't feel important.


End file.
